The Carbon Footprint

Our supper-time conversation was about the new energy tax that Canadians will be experiencing. David Camps thinks that taking care of the earth in this fashion is a no-brainer. I tell him, if you talk the talk, can you walk the walk. He wants to know what that means. I tell him that part of it is about growing food or eating food that is grown close to your home. But I am wondering what I will be doing with all of the windfall apples if they are picked up and put on my counter.

Not that my idea is a good one for my health, but the idea of turning all of those apples into pies is in my head. The reason I want to resist is the idea of peeling the apples. Making the pie crust is no problem. But my potato peeler is so dull that it takes more than 3 strokes just to get one peeling off of a spud.

I was astonished when I saw how fast
this apple peeler would work!

Listening to my complaints Glen offered to let me use their apple peeler.

He gave me a demo and then delivered the peeler plus a bushel of apples to my house.

By now I was a believer after watching one apple pass by the peeling blade and be cut into spirals on the same motion. The hardest task is lining up the tri-fork that goes into the core with the stem of the apple which has to meet a small hole at the end of the peeler. Hard, but not that hard, since I have more trouble threading a needle than getting the apple lined up in the right direction.

In order to let David have the full joy of the production of an apple pie from its genesis of an apple on a tree, to the pleasure of the first forkful into one’s mouth, Bonnie had David go over and pick 10 more apples from a tree, one apple for every year he is old. He didn’t feel any urgency to complete the task. There is no rush for a grade 6 boy about much … unless the end result has to do with accessing electronics. I, on the other hand, could see the three pounds of lard waiting to be turned into pies dough, and I could see the bushel of apples resting on the kitchen island needing to be peeled. And I know I have a limited time of life left, even if I project another 20 years, the time seems short.

Neither David nor I had counted on the apple pie tasting so good. Perhaps it was a function of using the best apples on the property: the ones on the west side of Wyona’s house. Perhaps it was a function of our hunger and the lateness of the evening that made them taste so good.

I was reminded of a lesson I learned while visiting Hampton Court with David Pilling. The tour guide said that originally pie crust was not made to be eaten. It was a vehicle by which to get the filling into people’s mouths. I was thinking about that as both of them were near my mouth, wondering when things changed so that both the crust and the filling became delicious.

But back to reducing our impact on the environment – eating apple pie made from fruit grown in or near my own yard is a nice way of feeling virtuous if that can count as reducing the carbon footprint.

Arta